I’ve been called a lot of things in my life. Pervert is one of them.

 

I’m a bad person. Very bad. I have sinned. I deserve a sharp beating from the justice paddle, and my mouth washed with soap before I grow hairy palms. How does that make sense? Go to an Ivy League school and learn how biology works, plebian.

 

I appreciate a good dance team. I enjoy the “talent” that comes to semifinal lacrosse games—the talent that isn’t on the field. And I may or may not have acquired the bulk of my women’s lacrosse knowledge from…ulterior motives.

 

But what got me here doesn’t matter right now; I’ll rot in hell later. I got to witness the greatest lacrosse game ever. And everyone on the field was wearing skirts. And no, this wasn’t one of those pervert fantasies—I think.

 

It’s true that Northwestern coach Kelly Amonte-Hiller is far more attractive than Dom Starsia, Jeff Tambroni, John Danowski and John Desko combined. But all biases aside, she did something all four of them couldn’t this weekend: give fans a game worth watching.

 

You see, Amonte-Hiller is a better coach than all of them. Statistically, her .822 winning percentage mauls any active men’s coach (Desko leads with .759). Right now, Northwestern is a bigger dynasty than any men’s program has ever been, winning four straight titles, on the verge of five this weekend (Hopkins won three in the 1970s).  They’re scarier than anything ever seen in men’s lacrosse.

 

Hiller’s hellcats have only lost once the last 24 months—the sole loss to Penn in 2007, their semifinal opponent Friday. To boot, the game was also a rematch of last year’s national championship game, where Penn held Northwestern to a humane 10-6 win. And luckily, the semifinal game was replayed so many times on air that Sheehan Stanwick’s quips have become as tired as Quint’s “laser!” or Dave Ryan’s “re-trigger!” As a result, I collected a headcount throughout the game.

 

Time it took for the first goal to score in the game: less than a minute. Time it took Northwestern to score off the draw to make it 3-0: eight seconds. Score at the half: 5-4. Times Northwestern and Penn exchanged back-and-forth goals afterwards: four. 

 

Unanswered Northwestern goals after Penn closed the gap to 8-7: three. Unanswered goals by Penn in the last four minutes of the game to send it into overtime: four. Time Penn held Northwestern scoreless through the end of regulation: 9 minutes, 17 seconds. Goals scored by Northwestern this year: 387—an NCAA record.

 

Time left in overtime after Penn went ahead 12-11 (the first period of overtime isn’t sudden death): 10 seconds. Time left in overtime after Penn goalie Emily Szelest stuffed a point-blank shot from reigning Tewaaraton winner Hannah Nielson, the ball bounced to the ground, the loose ball turned into a five-person scrum, Northwestern’s Katrina Dowd dove across the crease through three defenders, and Dowd flicked the ball into the net: 0 seconds.

 

Let’s recap here: yes, a lacrosse player dove across the crease, through three defenders, to flick the ball into the net without every scooping up the ball, at the buzzer. And she’s only 5’4”. And her name isn’t Paul Rabil.

 

I speak of blasphemy; I don’t think Paul Rabil could do that. I don’t think John Grant Jr. could do that. I think Tom Zummo could with a few Bud Lights in him if he started humming the Mikey Powell Band’s hit single, “Keys” (You, you’re like the leaves, you’re always changing your damn color on me!—So deep, bobbles), but that wasn’t the case. It took me three replays to realize what had happened, but it was the greatest lacrosse play ever—men’s or women’s.

 

And of course, into sudden death, the hellcats’ Meredith Frank stormed downfield into an isolation, planted a hard dodge and fired a shot off to seal the game—top left corner, high cheese, surrounded by three Penn defenders.   Two days later, they’re national champions—five times.

 

To finish off the list, five players had hat tricks. Twelve different players scored. And Sheehan Stanwick-Burch-Kessenich called Dowd’s shot “the sickest she’s ever seen.”

 

Penn and Northwestern gave us back and forth goals, an unprecedented defensive stand, a late rally, double overtime, the near-fall of a dynasty and possibly the greatest goal ever scored in lacrosse. Syracuse, Duke, Cornell and Virginia gave us two blowouts, a depressing attendance drop, and two second halves of meaningless lacrosse. Save for my “s***-eating grin,” deemed by one of my colleagues, I had during the Cornell game, the weekend in Foxboro did rope more fans into lacrosse. 

 

Yet I still haven’t seen a newspaper article, news clip or headline on any lacrosse web site about what happened in Towson.

 

I can’t even find a YouTube clip of it, and if it’s not on YouTube, that means it didn’t happen. Was I really dreaming? Have I combined my pervert side and my lacrosse side to indulge in some twisted pleasure? Girls AND lacrosse? What has this adolescent been missing all this years?

 

If I wasn’t one of the Ivy League elite, I probably came to the wrong Final Four this weekend...pervert or not.